


Trust

by orangesandlemons



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: But you'll notice I left out the damn yoga pants, Character development through porn, F/F, In which I get way too hung up on why Kalinda wears clothes during sex scenes sometimes, In which Kalinda also gets a new headboard, In which Kalinda has fortuitously deep nightstand drawers, Light Bondage, PWP, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 06:17:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2057025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangesandlemons/pseuds/orangesandlemons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written to prompt "Alicia/Kalinda: tied up" in sweetjamielee's "Everything Changes" 2014 TGW ficathon.  Set in season one, when they were just beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set early in season one because season one Alicia and Kalinda make me happy. Lot of lemon, a little conversation.

“So... this is your bedroom.” Alicia forced her foot over the threshold, shoving down her hesitation. She'd been “seeing” Kalinda for three months (a decent euphemism, Alicia figured, given that she had no idea what the hell they were doing) and she'd never set foot in her apartment, let alone her bedroom. She glanced around the room, trying not to look as eager as she felt. 

“Yup,” Kalinda said, a little dryly. “This is it.”

“It's so...” Alicia surveyed the room for a moment, then burst into laughter. 

“What?” 

Alicia caught the irritation in Kalinda's tone and tried to smother the laughter. “Sorry. Really. It's very... nice....” she managed, and then broke into laughter again. “It's just so... so _white_ ,” she choked out eventually. “How can you live here?”

“I manage,” Kalinda said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “If you don't like it we can always call it a night.”

“No,” Alicia said hastily, and a quick smirk passed over Kalinda's face. “It's fine. It's lovely.” she said. Teasingly – knowing she was pushing it, but unable to stop – she added, “Just a little bit like a hotel, that's all. What have you got in here, a Gideon Bible?” 

Pulling open the drawer in the nightstand, she glanced in, and then gasped.

The nightstand was full of sex toys. A whole lot of sex toys. Alicia goggled at them, décor of the room forgotten; she didn't consider herself particularly naive, but this was something else again. Close to a dozen vibrators, ranging in size from a thing that looked like a purple plastic egg to – Alicia's stomach flipped – a long white thing with a cord that was easily the length of her arm from shoulder to elbow. And if she squinted she thought she could tell the difference between the vibrators and the dildos – another dozen of those, maybe, all different sizes, colors, textures, ranging from realistic cock-shaped silicone to an elegant curve of varicolored glass that looked like it belonged in a museum somewhere to a strange item more than twice the length of any of the others and shaped like a W. Bottles of lube, an incidental pile of condoms. Two different things that Alicia assumed were dildo harnesses, judging from the hole in each, but while one looked like it went around the waist like she'd have expected, the other looked like an oversized blood pressure cuff. Alicia started to laugh at the incongruity of the image, then stopped abruptly as she noticed the jumble of things near the back corner: handcuffs, fur-lined ankle- and wrist-cuffs, a length of shiny silver chain, a coil of woven black rope. A couple of filmy scarves, a blindfold, something that might have been a gag. And a long black paddle and a little leather whip. 

“Well, that shut you up,” she heard Kalinda say from behind her.

Alicia wheeled around to face Kalinda. “Wow,” she said, trying to sound casual. Judging from the look on Kalinda's face, she wasn't doing it very well. “You've got half a sex shop in there.”

Kalinda shrugged. “Not really. Just things I've picked up over the years.”

“And you... use all of them?” 

“What would the point of having them be if I didn't?”

“But... then...

“Oh.” Kalinda stepped closer to Alicia, placing her hands firmly on Alicia's arms.. “Look. People I'm with like different things.” _Who have you been with who likes being whipped?_ Alicia thought, but she ruled against asking it. “That's why I have that stuff. So I can give people what they like.” She ran her hands up Alicia's shoulders, beginning a slow massage. “I'm not going to do anything to you that you won't like.” 

“Really,” Alicia said, her throat suddenly feeling a little clogged. “And what are you going to do to me?” 

“Let's find out.” Kalinda dropped her hands and moved in, letting her closeness overwhelm Alicia – the press of her breasts, the light, maddening scent of jasmine perfume. She ran her fingers up Alicia's body, from hips to stomach to chest, letting her fingertips graze past Alicia's breasts, smiling at Alicia's sharp intake of breath and the instant rising of Alicia's nipples under her fingers. “Undress. Now.”

Within moments Alicia's clothing was scattered across the carpet – jacket, blouse, and skirt, nylons and panties and bra, all tossed around the room in individual puddles of silk, linen, lace; with other people she'd been a line-the-shoes-up-neatly-before-starting kind of person, but times changed. Kalinda was slower, sitting on the bed still clad in a black lace bustier as Alicia stepped out of her panties and turned to her, goose-pimples rising on cream-fair skin. “Come over here,” Kalinda said, looking over the long, lean form before her, all straight birch-like limbs and understated curves. In two steps Alicia was straddling Kalinda on the bed, pushing her flat on her back. For a moment Kalinda lay rigid, spine set, and then she relaxed, letting Alicia climb over her, Alicia's hair spilling around Kalinda's face as she leaned in to kiss her. Then she stiffened again, slightly, as Alicia began to pull at the straps of the bustier, trying to take it off.

“Kalinda, what is that?” Alicia asked, sitting up, distracted for the moment. 

“What's what?”

“The way you tense up when I try to take off your underwear. It's like you don't like being naked with me.” Kalinda shook her head, but she wouldn't meet Alicia's eyes. “It seems like – ”

“Forget it.” In a swift movement, Kalinda stripped off the lingerie, throwing it backwards over her head. “There,” she said, and pulled Alicia back into the kiss. Her breath caught in her throat as as Alicia quickly licked the ball of a thumb and drew it hard across Kalinda's nipple. Kalinda let out a tiny half-moan, quickly stifled, and as she spread her knees unconsciously Alicia pushed her back onto the bed again, straddling her, fully on top. Alicia shivered herself, thumbing both Kalinda's nipples now as she kissed from mouth to ear down to neck, listening to Kalinda's harsh breathing, the occasional sighs and choked-back noises. Alicia on top wasn't something that happened often. 

In the three months that they'd been sleeping together, Alicia had gotten used to a few things about Kalinda, things she'd thought would change at first but that she'd become resigned to over time. If she'd thought when they began sleeping together that it would pierce Kalinda's reserve, that her wall would come down, she'd left that idea behind; if anything, in some ways it had gotten more pronounced. Kalinda liked to make love wearing an item or two of lingerie. She had crotchless panties, thongs and varied tops that could be shoved aside quickly, but they usually stayed on. She was quiet in bed as well – embarrassing Alicia, whose noise levels got out of control when it was Kalinda on top of her, pulling moans and cries and finally screams out of her with the calm certainty of a magician pulling handkerchiefs from a sleeve. Kalinda enjoyed Alicia's screams, but she did not scream herself. Alicia had worked madly for weeks trying to learn Kalinda's body, mark every tiny reaction, before she had come to moderate her expectations, gauge Kalinda's pleasure by the short, choked, sharp-edged cries Alicia could tear from her when she climaxed. Kalinda was who she was. Best to accept that and enjoy the hell out of her for however long she chose to stay. 

Back in the moment, Alicia ran flat palms down over Kalinda's body, stopping at her stomach, feeling Kalinda's abdomen rise and fall more quickly as she kissed her way down to Kalinda's breasts, drawing a nipple into her mouth, matching her tongue's circles with her fingers on the other nipple. She stayed there for awhile, listening to Kalinda's uneven hitching breaths, finally trailing her hand down between Kalinda's legs. She let her hands trace slow, graceful patterns on Kalinda's thighs – first one, then the other – running her fingers over the join between leg and groin. Kalinda's legs were wide apart by now, expectant, but Alicia continued to tease. Finally, in a quick, impatient movement, Kalinda seized Alicia's left wrist, trying to pull Alicia's hand inside her. 

“Oh, no, you don't.” Alicia pulled her hand free and grabbed Kalinda's own wrist, shifting to lean up across Kalinda. In a fast move she grabbed Kalinda's other wrist, pulled them together over her head, and pinned them against the headboard, pressing her knee hard between Kalinda's legs. “Not yet --” 

All of a sudden Kalinda's eyes were on hers, wide and frantic, and her convulsive gasp shook the bed. 

Startled, Alicia studied Kalinda's face -- suddenly desperate and a little afraid. “Oh, you like that?” Alicia said, and pushed harder against Kalinda's wrists. Kalinda closed her eyes, bit her lip, trying to regain her composure, not making much of a success of it. 

“So you do like that,” Alicia said, watching Kalinda closely. And an idea occurred to her, something she'd never have dreamed of doing an hour before, but it sent a rush of blood to her head now. Slowly, she reached for the drawer of the nightstand. At the soft thud of the drawer's opening, Kalinda twisted her head, watching as Alicia lifted up a set of plain steel handcuffs. 

Kalinda snapped her gaze back to Alicia's. “Those aren't for me,” she said through gritted teeth. 

“What? You said you used everything in here.” 

“I use them on people. People don't use them on me.” 

“Really,” Alicia said, her eyes locked on Kalinda's. “Because you seem to be enjoying this.”

She tightened her grip on Kalinda's wrists, shoved them a little higher. Kalinda's defiant expression dissolved and the graceful line of her throat distorted as she swallowed visibly. 

“Let's try this,” Alicia said, and the handcuffs clinked as she pulled them out of the drawer. “You tell me to stop and I will.” Kalinda opened her eyes, that fierce, hard defiance warring with arousal and confusion, and for a moment Alicia was sure Kalinda was going to tell her to stop right away. Very deliberately maintaining eye contact, Alicia slipped one of the cuffs around Kalinda's right wrist and snapped it closed. Immediately she felt a warm rush against her knee, pressed up between Kalinda's legs, and she narrowly escaped laughing out loud, intoxicated by this sudden power she had over Kalinda. She looked for a workable hole in the headboard, which was an elegant wrought-iron pattern designed to look like interlocking leafy vines ( _so that's why you chose it,_ an inner voice jibed), found one, pulled Kalinda's hand up by the handcuff and threaded the chain of the cuff through. Placing the other handcuff around Kalinda's left wrist, she hesitated for a moment. “Do you want me to do this?” she asked. 

Kalinda's chest was heaving now, her cheeks flushed bright. Her hair was coming down out of its careful updo, a swath of black obscuring one of her cheeks. She met Alicia's eyes, and in that moment moment Alicia could see her desire and her fear, all mixed up – wanting to trust, not sure if she could dare it. _But I'm safe_ , Alicia thought, willing Kalinda to read the words in her gaze. _You can trust me. You're safe with me._

“I'm not going to do anything you won't like,” Alicia said finally, echoing Kalinda's own words. 

After an impossibly long moment, Kalinda gave a short, sharp nod. 

Alicia let out a long breath, power going to her head like champagne. The click of the handcuff closing was almost drowned out by Kalinda's harsh intake of breath. Alicia sat back for a moment, drinking in the sight of Kalinda – skin slicked with sweat, hair in her face, lipstick smudged as she bit her lips. She'd never been so beautiful. 

After a moment Kalinda opened her eyes. “Well?” she said, voice ragged. 

“Why do I have you tied up if I can't take my time, Kalinda?” Alicia asked, and felt another surge of euphoria as Kalinda unconsciously started to squirm. “I'll take as long as I want,” she said, and bent and took one of Kalinda's nipples, already rock-hard, in her mouth. Kalinda squirmed again and let out a moan – a real moan, not half-smothered this time. And Alicia found that she didn't really want to take that much time after all. 

She slid her mouth quickly down Kalinda's body, kissing here and licking there, reveling in the gasps and little cries she was pulling out of Kalinda for a change. She started to move her mouth down further, already breathing in the scent of sex, and then paused, raising her head to glance back up at Kalinda. Kalinda, twisting against the sheets, nude and at Alicia's mercy. Kalinda, who was about to lose control. Which Alicia had never seen. 

She sat back again, and Kalinda gasped out, “No – don't –“

“No what?” Alicia said, mostly teasing, but a little nervous part of her still wanting to make sure. “You want me to stop?”

“ _Don't_ stop. Please --”

Another word Alicia had never heard from Kalinda in bed. “I'm not stopping,” she said, and Kalinda let out a sharp breath. “But I'm not going down on you either.” 

Kalinda opened her mouth to protest, but the protest turned into a cry as Alicia knelt, pushing Kalinda's legs apart with her knees, and pushed a hand inside. 

Alicia gasped herself. She'd meant to start slow, a couple fingers, but at first touch it was as though Kalinda's body was sucking her hand in, huge empty spaces in her needing to be filled, and Alicia stared in wonder as her hand disappeared up to the wrist. Tentatively, she flexed her fingers, contracting her hand a bit, and Kalinda cried out and bucked her hips hard enough to knock Alicia off-balance. Alicia began to move in and out, hand in a loose fist now, trying to twist her hand so her knuckles would hit that tiny spongy stretch of flesh inside that she'd spent so much time learning to find. Kalinda was writhing now, yanking the handcuffs around, the rasping of metal on metal marking the futility of it. On her next pull out Alicia dipped a finger on her right hand inside Kalinda, and then her fist pushed back inside and her right hand attacked Kalinda's clit, and she heard Kalinda scream for the first time. 

It was over in a minute after that with one last ragged scream, Kalinda's hips bucking away from Alicia, legs jerking reflexively. Alicia dropped her right hand, began to pull her left hand out, but Kalinda shook her head. “No, stay, please,” she managed. Alicia pushed the inch or two back in, feeling Kalinda contract around her with the aftershocks, watching as her shaking slowed, then stopped. Finally, after several minutes, Alicia began to pull her hand out – slowly, slowly. Kalinda was hit by a small shiver of loss as Alicia's fingertips pulled free. Wiping her drenched hand on the edge of one of the white sheets, Alicia moved back up the bed to lie beside Kalinda, excitement quivering in her stomach. 

“So...” she said, pushing a sweat-soaked curl off Kalinda's cheek. 

Kalinda lay for a moment, still catching her breath. “So what?” she said eventually. 

“So --” Alicia realized she didn't know what “so.” _So, did you enjoy yourself?_ Stupid question. What she really wanted was for Kalinda to tell her, without asking, _That was amazing_. She wanted Kalinda to thank her, maybe. Pull her in for a kiss that wasn't a prelude to sex, a kiss that meant something more. She wanted to mean something more to Kalinda than she had before. She wanted this to change things.

She flipped over instead and opened the nightstand drawer again, glad for the pretext. Fumbling around for a minute, she glanced over her shoulder. “Is this where you keep the key for those things? I can't find it,” she said. The death glare she got from Kalinda brought things to a lighter level, farther away from the intense conversation she'd hoped for a moment they were going to have. She unlocked the cuffs and tossed them back in the drawer, feeling guilty as Kalinda immediately began to massage red lines out of her wrists. A minute ago Alicia would have kissed the marks, massaged them out herself, slowly, taking her time. Now she rolled over – carefully keeping her thighs apart, still incredibly turned on and pissed off about it – and reached for the watch lying on the nightstand, running calculations in her head to stem the tide of disappointment rolling in over her at Kalinda's non-response to what they'd just done. _Kids are with Jackie and she'll probably stay the night but if I'm out too late she might tell Peter and_ \--

“Hey.” 

Alicia glanced back at Kalinda, hope surging up against her will. 

Kalinda propped herself on her elbows against her pillow, “Now it's your turn,” she said. 

“With the handcuffs?” Alicia asked, fighting for composure. 

Kalinda shrugged “With anything you want.” She glanced over at the nightstand. “Pick something.” 

“Kalinda, I don't even know what half of those things do.” 

“I can teach you.” Abruptly Kalinda slid across the bed, grabbing Alicia's face in her hands, pulling her in for a long, hard kiss. Alicia felt another rush of wetness between her legs; she wasn't sure she'd ever been this wet in her life. 

“Maybe you should pick something out for me yourself,” Alicia said finally. “Not the whip,” she added hastily. “I'm just... curious.” 

“No whips if you don't want them. But I have a few ideas,” Kalinda said.

“Then..." 

"Do you trust me?” 

Alicia stared. “What?” 

“Do you trust me?” 

“Kalinda, you – you're asking _me_ that question? Do you have any idea how many --”

“Uh-uh. We're not having a conversation about this right now. Do you trust me?” Alicia hesitated, struggling to leave her own questions behind, to follow Kalinda at her own pace. She'd almost decided she wouldn't let it go, when – 

“I trusted you,” Kalinda said, and her voice was very low. “So. Will you trust me, Alicia?”

After a moment, Alicia nodded slowly. 

“Great.” Kalinda reached into the drawer, rummaged around for a moment, and pulled out the coil of rope. "Come with me,” she said, and left the room.


	2. Chapter 2

After what they'd just done in the bedroom, Alicia could have come in two minutes. Kalinda made her wait thirty. 

She'd made Alicia sit in an armchair in the living room, her rear balanced near the edge of the seat, one leg splayed out over each arm of the chair. She pulled Alicia's wrists up above her head, tied them together, then ran the rope down and tethered them to a leg of the chair. Each ankle was tied and tethered to another chair leg. Then she began to tease.

Nibbling Alicia's earlobe, feeling her shiver, then placing a palm open and flat against her cunt – no movement, no friction, just a hard press. Removing her hand, tracing Alicia's jawline with a fingertip, feathering kisses in her finger's wake. There was no ordinary progression, no moving from kisses and nibbles to sex; it was advance and retreat, advance and retreat. She'd learned by now that no matter how turned on Alicia got, she couldn't come without some hard clit stimulation, and that was the one thing Kalinda wouldn't give. Dipping a finger just a tiny bit inside Alicia, pulling out a little fluid, rubbing it into Alicia's nipple, licking it off. Moving her mouth to Alicia's groin, staying there for a moment, just breathing, no touch, and then licking and kissing her way up Alicia's thighs to her stomach. Running her fingers over Alicia's belly and breasts in lazy patterns. Sucking on a nipple, flicking the tip fast with her tongue, matching the pace on the other with her fingertips. Teasing with a curl of hair, lighter than a feather. And sliding down, taking Alicia's clit in her mouth, pressing her tongue against it for a long moment, and never moving. Immediately removing her mouth and sitting back altogether as Alicia began to twist and wriggle against her mouth, trying to create her own friction. Smiling at Alicia's pleas, curses, more pleas.

Within five minutes Alicia had lost track of everything in the world except what Kalinda was doing to her. In ten minutes she was desperate beyond imagination. Kalinda was so smooth, always one step ahead, thwarting all of Alicia's increasingly frantic attempts at making herself come. Alicia heard her own pleas, and she knew how much Kalinda enjoyed them, and in slightly saner moments, moments when Kalinda had backed off a bit, she swore to herself that she was not going to beg anymore. Nope. It wasn't going to happen. And then Kalinda would do one more thing and Alicia would hear endless repetitions and variants of _please_ coming out of her mouth, _please let me come_ and _oh God please more_ and _please please please don't stop._ And Kalinda always did. 

Finally, a half hour in, Kalinda decided play time was over and thrust three fingers hard inside Alicia, then knelt forward and shot her tongue across Alicia's clit in a way that made Alicia scream, made her pull desperately at the ropes, bucking her hips so much Kalinda had to hold them down with the hand that wasn't busy fucking her. Another three seconds and Alicia was coming harder than she'd ever come before, crying out at the top of her lungs, jerking and writhing so hard she nearly upset the chair. Kalinda left her fingers inside, letting her hand ride the orgasm, curling her fingers up and pressing hard whenever the contractions seemed to be fading away. It was a good two minutes before Alicia could lie still, recovering. 

From a million miles away she heard Kalinda say, “Well, it's nice that you were so patient.”

 _I wasn't_ , Alicia tried to say, but her mouth wasn't working properly yet. 

“I think you get a reward for that.” 

And she took Alicia's clit into her mouth again, moving firmly but slowly – building Alicia up, getting her going again, showing Alicia what it was that she wanted. Alicia's pleas and cries were getting garbled this time, words suddenly shooting up into shrieks. When she finished Alicia was boneless against the couch, shaking, still spasming occasionally. Kalinda sat back and watched her silently for a moment, taking in every detail of Alicia as she lay there gasping. Then she went back into the bedroom and came back out with the two-foot-long white thing with the cord that had freaked Alicia out earlier. It turned out to be a Hitachi Magic Wand vibe, and to Alicia's relief, it turned out to be for external use. It also turned out to be the source of a final volcanic orgasm for Alicia. By the time she was done she couldn't have told Kalinda her name. 

Kalinda got up and untied Alicia's wrists; one arm fell to her side and the other came to rest crooked over her head, rag doll-limp. Kalinda released each foot next, wincing at the abrasions on the skin; the rope she'd used was smooth and soft, but its softness hadn't been any match for Alicia's thrashing. “Sorry,” she said. 

Alicia laughed, a low, throaty chuckle that went straight to Kalinda's groin. “You know, of all the things you could say right now, 'sorry' isn't the one I'd pick.” 

“Come on,” Kalinda said suddenly, standing up. “Come back to the bedroom with me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

“Kalinda, there's no way I can walk right now.” 

“You'll feel better in the bed.” 

“Again, feeling bad is not the problem.”

“You know what I mean.” Kalinda tugged on Alicia's arm, trying to rouse her. “Just come with me.”

“I think I just did.” Relenting, Alicia tried to stand up, immediately had to catch herself against the chair. “I told you.” 

Kalinda slipped an arm around her waist, letting Alicia drape an arm across her shoulders. “I've got you. Come on.” 

They made their way to the bedroom, Alicia stumbling, Kalinda keeping her upright. As soon as they got there Alicia collapsed onto the bed, letting herself slip back into post-sex euphoria. Kalinda lay close to her, body curved to match the shape of Alicia's, but not quite touching. 

Eventually Alicia, half-asleep, threw an arm around Kalinda, pulling her a little closer. Immediately Kalinda snuggled in, pressing up fully against Alicia, one hand gently stroking Alicia's hair. 

Alicia opened her eyes. “Hey.”

“What?”

“That's what you wanted all along, isn't it? That's why you wanted to move to the bed. Just so we could cuddle?”

Kalinda let her hand fall from Alicia's hair, half-sat up. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Why in the world would I do that? Come on, lie back down,” she said. After a moment Kalinda complied, but she was more rigid than before, her tension clear. “Kalinda, I'm not going to laugh at you for wanting to cuddle. You don't have to play games, hoping I'll guess what you want. Why don't you just ask for what you want?”

“I do ask for what I want.”

“Not about things like this. Not about...” Alicia hesitated, thinking it through. “Not about intimacy,” she said finally. 

Kalinda was silent for a long moment. “Yep. You got me,” she said eventually, trying for a sardonic edge, not quite managing it. “I have an intimacy problem.” 

“You do. And don't joke about it. Not now, okay? Not when I'm... trying to talk to you about it.” 

“What do you want me to say?” 

“A lot. I don't know, anything. I want to know why you wear lingerie during sex. I want to know why until tonight you were always quiet in bed, always holding back, even when I know you were enjoying it. And I want to know why you got even quieter after a few weeks. I want to know why you started tensing up. What happened? I feel like you pulled away from me, and I don't know why.”

Kalinda hesitated. “It isn't that,” she said after a minute. “I'm not pulling away.” 

“Then what?” 

“It's...” Kalinda took a deep breath. “It's... harder... when...” She let her voice die, twisting her thumb ring around and around. 

“When what? Please, Kalinda.”

“When someone matters.” It came out in a rush. “That's what happened. You started... to matter.” 

Alicia let out a deep, shuddering breath. There it was. What she'd been wanting to hear for weeks, what she'd been half-convinced she'd never hear. 

“I don't really know how to trust people, Alicia,” Kalinda said. “I want to. I just...” 

“But you can trust me. I'm not going to – laugh at you, or hurt you, or... or change, or whatever it is you're afraid of.”

“I know that. I just... find it hard to believe.” 

“Believe it.” Alicia pulled Kalinda closer, resting Kalinda's head on her chest. “Please.”

They lay there like that for a long time, Kalinda listening to Alicia's heartbeat, Alicia's arms around Kalinda's waist. 

“OK,” Kalinda said finally, almost inaudibly. 

“What?” 

“I said OK.” 

Alicia had to run their conversation back in her head for a moment, trying to remember what Kalinda was saying OK to. When she finally had it in place – _You can trust me... believe it_ – her heart rate sped up, and she knew Kalinda was hearing it. She tightened her arms around Kalinda's waist, bent her head and placed a gentle kiss in Kalinda's hair – something she'd wanted to do for weeks but had always resisted, figuring Kalinda wouldn't want it. Now she felt Kalinda's contentment, and she reveled in it. This – this was what she'd been looking for all along. 

“You matter to me too,” she said. 

“I know.”

“I'm that transparent.”

“Yeah.” 

“Figures.” 

They drifted together for a long time, wrapped up in each other's warmth, breathing deepening as they neared sleep. Kalinda was just beginning to snore softly when Alicia's eyes snapped open. “Shit. The kids,” she said. 

Kalinda opened her eyes. “What?”

“They're with Jackie. I have to call. Or... go home,” she said, watching Kalinda's face. “One or the other.” 

“So what are you going to do?” Kalinda's face was carefully neutral.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Is this going to be a thing you're going to be doing now?”

“What?”

“You insisting I tell you what I want.” 

“It's not a thing. I just want to know what you want me to do about the kids.” 

A long pause; Alicia waited it out. 

“Stay,” Kalinda said finally, and her eyes found Alicia's. 

Alicia laughed softly. “I was going to do that anyway.” 

Kalinda hit her with a pillow. “And you said you weren't making it a thing.”

“It sounded good, though, didn't it?” Alicia said, and then they started laughing together.

“So. I better make that call,” Alicia said after the laughter dried up, getting up reluctantly. “Another night I don't come home. Peter's going to think I'm sleeping with Will for sure.” 

“Funny.” Alicia rummaged in her bag for her cell phone, went into the hallway to make the call. When she got back Kalinda was lying naked beneath the duvet, covers turned down beside her for Alicia. Alicia slid into the bed and reached out to hold Kalinda again. 

As Alicia hovered on the brink of slumber a few small words occurred to her, and in that moment, mostly asleep, she might have said them. But then Kalinda let out a snore, and Alicia answered with one of her own, and the words would have to wait for another day.


End file.
